Research Paper

Introduction:
In my experiment I have to see if height affects the bounce of a dropped ball. You may be asking does height really affect the bounce of a dropped ball. To find out you have know what the following words mean and what they specifically do in the experiment. The words are air pressure, motion, gravity, energy, and forces.

Air pressure:
Air pressure is the amount of air pushing down on a given area. Air pressure is all around us and it’s a really strong force. You can’t see it but it always there. There are some variations that have to do with air pressure. They include time and the most important height. Height is the most important variation because that’s what this experiment is asking. You can measure air pressure with a tool called barometer. The barometer mostly measures the change in air pressure. 1 kilogram per square inch is the total amount of air pressure we are under.


Motion:
Motion is the act of changing the position or place of an object. Motion is describe by velocity, acceleration, and time. Velocity is the speed in a given direction. Velocity can change. This change is cause by a force named “Newton’s law of motion. Acceleration is the rate of change of velocity with time. All of this has to do with motion. When the motion of an object changes it is indentify as unbalanced force.
Gravity:
Gravity is the force between an object. An easier way to know when you are dealing with gravity is when you dropped an object to the ground. In this experiment that’s what you are mainly dealing with. Gravity puts weight on objects and makes them fall on the ground. Gravity is all around us. Gravity holds all the planets, including Earth. Gravity makes the entire planets orbit around the sun. Without gravity all the planets probably wouldn’t exist and we would not be here right now.


Energy:
Energy can be found anywhere. Energy is all around us and even inside of us. When energy is around us we can sometimes see it and other times we cannot see it. When energy is inside of people they are active and alert. They mostly want to do an activity that is challenging to them. The total amount of energy in an object is identified by the mass the object contains. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. Energy does that on its own. Mostly everything in Earth is made up of energy.



Forces:
Force causes an object to change speed, change its size, or change its shape. Mostly people identify force as a push or pull of an object. Force has velocity, acceleration, and also direction. Force can also deform an object. Force can be stopped by friction. Friction is the resistance that one surface or object encounters when moving over another. Force is all around us. We even use force to moves objects from one place to the other. You can measure the amount of force put on an object by indentifying how much mass and how much acceleration an object has.


These words all have to do with physics and this is what this experiment is dealing with. Newton’s law of motion is part of this experiment. The first law is when the velocity of a body is acted upon external force. The second law is when the acceleration of a body is parallel. The third law of motion is, the mutual forces of action and reaction between two bodies are equal. That is “Newton’s law of motion”.


When a ball is being dropped it is kinetic energy. At first the ball would be potential energy. The potential energy of the ball was converted to kinetic energy. When the ball hits the ground then the kinetic energy is converted back to potential energy.


The higher you throw the ball, the higher the ball will bounce from the ground. This all have to do with the total efficiency there is. Also the higher you drop it the more speed it will take to make the ball bounce from the ground. This will make the ball bounce even higher.
The mass and volume of the ball also matters in this experiment. You have to use the same balls for the whole experiment you can’t have different ball for every trial.

The more the ball bounces from the ball; it will take some time to get to its original bounce. This is all because of how high you drop the ball.

This experiment has a lot of factors that affect the bounce of a dropped ball, but the height the ball is thrown it is not compared to the other factors.

Now that you know that height really affects the bounce of a dropped ball.

Joselyn Granados
November 14, 2011
Period 4



Problem Statement:

Does height affect the bounce of a dropped ball?

Hypothesis:

If you drop a ball and see how high it will bounce, then I think that height does affect the bounce of a dropped ball.

Independent variable:

The height at which I drop the ball

Dependent Variable:

The bounce of the ball
Data

Controlled Variables:

  • Type of ball
  • Angle at which dropped
  • Force I drop the ball at
  • Size of ball
  • Weight of the ball
  • Data

(Trial 1) 38.1cm, 48.26cm, 50.8 = 45.72cm

  • (Trial 2) 73.66cm, 83.82cm, 96.52cm = 83.82cm
  • (Trial 3) 109.22cm, 106.68cm, 116.84cm = 110.58cm

  • Results: Height does affect the bounce of a dropped ball

Experiment 2:

Problem Statement:

Does the force you apply on the ball affect the bounce of it?

Hypothesis:

If you apply force on a ball when you drop the it at the force of low, medium, or hard, then I think that when you drop a ball hard it would affect the bounce of the ball more.

Independent Variable:

The force you drop the ball at

Dependent Variable:

The bounce of the ball

Controlled Variables: Data
  • Type of ball

  • The size of ball

  • Height you drop ball at

  • The surface the ball would bounce of ball

  • Weight of ball
  • Data
    • (Trial 1) 25.4cm, 27.94cm, 38.1cm = 30.48cm
    • (Trial 2) 45.71cm, 48.26cm, 55.88cm = 49.95cm

    • (Trial 3) 58.41cm, 60.96cm, 68.58cm = 62.64cm

Results: Weight does affect the bounce of a dropped ball

Experiment 3:

Does the weight of the ball affect the bounce of it?

Hypothesis:

If the ball has the weight of light, medium,or heavy, then I i think that the medium weight will affect the bounce of the dropped ball more.

Independent Variable:

The weight of the ball

Dependent Variable:

The bounce of the ball

Controlled Variables:

  • Angle at which dropped

  • Height at which the dropped

  • The surface the ball would bounce of

  • Force you drop the ball

  • Data

    • (Trial 1) 50.8cm, 54.88cm, 58.42cm = 54.7cm

    • (Trial 2) 66.04cm, 62.5, 70.12cm = 66.22cm

    • (Trial 3) 35.5cm, 48.26cm. 38.1cm = 40.62cm

Results: The weight of the ball does affect the bounce of it.

My Assignment

Lesson 1 was about the Science method. Its mostly talked about the way you observe objects, people, and mostly anything. It talked about how things are for example how animals under the water live and how people get to learn about them. Also it taught us new words like predicting, classifying, inferring, and much more. The lesson also covered making models or evaluating things. It showed different kind of scientist who all study something different , perhaps like ocean life or scientist who investigate objects. For example one scientist studies corals and habitats of animals living under water. Also they talked about whales and other types of animals, but mostly it talks about fishes and whales. The lesson covered our observation and other people's observations. The lesson taught us how we must conduct an experiment. Basically you observe what ever you need to observe in your experiment. Next you infer your experiment. Than you predict was going to happen in your experiment. The next step is to classify your data. Next you make a model. Lastly you evaluate your experiment or comparing the observations that you made. It shows nature and how even though nature is different we all still need to eat and be around where we are supposed to be. This lesson covers a lot of things that of course deals with science. In total it teaches us about nature, animals, the science method when conducting an experiment. Science teaches us about everything that surrounds us. That is what this lesson covers on.


I like to play with friends, spend time with my family, and of course i like to have fun. I always try to make something boring into something fun. My favorite subject is, i don't really have one because everyone subject is different. My favorite topic in science would be learning about space i just like learning about space because its so cool how you get to learn about things that you don't see everyday and about animals i love animals so much i even have a cute dog but i like certain animals not all of them. My least favorite topic in science would be learning about minerals. I don't like this topic because its boring i just don't like it, its not interesting at all. What i think we are going to learn this school year is more about space, plants, animals, the sun, and more about the weather.